Lynn Haney kind of reminds us of Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina

Sometimes you meet someone briefly, but have an immediate desire to better know that person.

I think that anyone hearing Lynn Haney as a speaker would have that reaction, because she is so interesting and has led such an unusual life. But for me, there was an added sense of coming across a kindred spirit, so we arranged to meet for coffee in Guilford and ended up spending most of the afternoon together.

The one thread that runs throughout this 70-plus-year-old woman’s remarkable life is her willingness to take a chance; her guiding principle seems to be — leap and the net will appear.

Haney grew up in Pittsburgh, the youngest of four girls. Her mother had been a campus queen and model, and married a man 17 years her senior who held a responsible position for the city of Pittsburgh.

She attended the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in creative writing. She recalled a defining moment upon graduating, when a girlfriend remarked, “Lynn, if we don’t get married now, we’ll have to face life.”

Haney decided she was not ready to “face life,” but was, instead, going to Paris. Taking a teaching job at a private girls school in order to earn money for the trip, she also placed ads as an English tutor in the international edition of the Herald Tribune. When no responses were forthcoming, she left for Paris anyway and arrived there, unemployed, with $540 in savings.

She found reasonable digs in the dormitories at the Alliance Francaise and decided, since she had watched her mother model, to interview for a position at the couturier Jean Patou.

Despite only a smattering of high school French, she was hired to announce the summer fashion shows. Quickly dismissed from that position when it was discovered that her accent was so poor that nobody could understand her commentary, she went, undaunted, to Dior where she became an assistant saleswoman and was popular with the many wealthy, English-speaking buyers.

Eventually, her French improved, and she ended up at Lanvin, again as a model, but her career was “rear ended” when, although she was model thin, her young body matured and she developed a more fulsome and typically American “behind,” which did not fit the narrow French fashions.

Haney lived in Paris from 1963 to 1965, but then she met and fell in love with an American from Washington, D.C. Before taking the leap to leave Paris and follow him to Washington, she wisely obtained a letter of introduction to a person of influence at the White House from the consul general in Paris. Continued...


12See Full Story
Once again, the “net” appeared; this time in the form of the newly organized Endowment for the Arts, where she worked in the public relations department for 2½ years. Upon leaving Washington and coming to New York, she was hired as a news assistant for The New York Times.

She met her first husband, a fellow writer, in a writing room at the New York library and moved to Stonington, where she wrote the first of, to date, 12 books.

Her second husband occasioned a move back to Washington, but eventually to Guilford where she has lived for the past 15 years, enjoying her latest life leap as a speaker, writer and writing coach.

Lynn Haney is a shining example of a stimulating, engaged, adventuresome individual who embodies the philosophy of “age is a number, not a destination.” She can be reached at lynnthaney@gmail.com.

- Article by Jean Cherni, founder of the retirement advisory service, Senior Living Solutions. Contact her at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or 15 The Ponds at Hotchkiss Grove, Branford 06405.

I'm reading: Lynn Haney kind of reminds us of Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina